Appraisal ratings in diary reports of reasonable and unreasonable anger

Forty‐eight undergraduate students completed diaries reporting on up to five episodes of anger experienced over the course of a week. Ratings of motivational relevance, motivational incongruence and other‐accountability appraisals were significantly lower for relatively less reasonable instances of anger. Multilevel modelling confirmed that rated reasonableness of anger was a significant continuous predictor of the same three appraisal dimensions, even after controlling for reported anger. These results extend earlier findings obtained using retrospective questionnaires, suggesting that reportable other‐blame‐related appraisals are generally weaker when anger is perceived as unreasonable. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.